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It’d be more accurate to say that they’re using petroleum as a battery for solar or wind energy that would otherwise go to waste. Not terribly efficient as a fuel source, but relatively efficient as a battery.

Pulling CO2 from air is no big deal.
Electrolysis of water is CHEM 101.
Turning Hydrogen and C02 into Methanol is easy
Turning Methanol into Gasoline is expensive, but possible. (I think Shell tried this back in the 80s)

It’s much more energy efficient (and probably an order of magnitude cheaper) to get methanol from natural gas.

This has “way to bilk governments out of billions in research grants” all over it.

The old synthetic fuel trick the Germans used way back in the 30s and 40s. It takes a lot of energy and carbon to create the fuel. The old way is using coal for the carbon but, this way uses CO2 from the air. Sounds like a viable CO2 scam for AGW. What better way to stop AGW than by converting the CO2 into fuel? Just send tons of money their way and have the government subsidize it and we get 100 dollar a gallon fuel sold for 4 bucks a gallon and some very rich investors. If this was really worth while we would have been doing it a long time ago.

They are using electrolysis to make Hydrogen from water. Why not just stop right there and use the Hydrogen as a fuel? Why are they using more energy to simply make a different combustible?

Btw, electrolysis to make Hydrogen has been around forever. It’s not a bad solution for making a transportation fuel if the electricity is dirt cheap, but that would only happen if a large number of cookie-cutter fission plants are built.

Most electrical generating plants today are natural gas powered, and it doesn’t make any sense to burn natgas to make hydrogen – especially since natgas can be used to power vehicles in fewer years than hydrogen.

A small British firm says it has found a way to make petrol from air and water

Yes….it’s called a “plant.” Can you say “plant?”

Now all you’d need is a massive power source to give the “plant” the energy to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen in the water and chain it up with carbon in the air….hmmmmmmm. Maybe a huge, self-sustaining nuclear reaction? (I’m just spitballing here).

It’d be more accurate to say that they’re using petroleum as a battery for solar or wind energy that would otherwise go to waste. Not terribly efficient as a fuel source, but relatively efficient as a battery.

SoRight on November 29, 2012 at 11:53 AM

Yep. The big advantage of this (if it were to become somewhat efficient) is to be able to use intermittent electricity sources which can’t be hooked to the grid (since they are intermittent). I’d have to see the actual numbers on power required and all but this is one possible solution to the ridiculous uselessness of wind and solar energy for any input into the grid.

I would guess, however, that this process would still need its own steady source of electricity for the time it is running, so it might not be much better at using wind or solar. It depends on how much fuel can actually be produced for medium amounts of electricity and how flexible the process is to varying electric input.

Screw the BS global warming crap. This is interesting in its own right, though I tend to doubt it will end up being efficient enough for any serious implementation.

Of course, wind and solar, themselves, are okay for individuals to use as intermittent sources, if not great. It’s really the idiots who think that you have to use these methods for industrial electricity production to be used for the grid who really screw things up. Then again, leftists are always looking to pervert and screw up everything they touch.

It’s interesting. But they admit it is pretty darn expensive. Just like ethanol, it’s all about how much energy does it take to store the energy you will use later. Ethanol is very inefficient. This seems inefficient, too. Sucking oil out of the ground is more efficient. Sucking natgas out of the ground is really efficient. Turning hydrogen into helium is *really* efficient – there’s just this whole “uncontainable reaction” thing it has working against it……..

Of course, wind and solar, themselves, are okay for individuals to use as intermittent sources, if not great.

ThePrimordialOrderedPair on November 29, 2012 at 12:37 PM

The problem is that wind and solar generation often requires more energy to build, transport, install, maintain, and abandon during it’s life span. This equates to a negative EROEI. A negative EROEI project for energy generation is never a good idea.